Archives May 2016

Yes I am blogging on a holiday.  Time-wise it just works out.

Even though we had an extra day tacked onto this weekend and no MAJOR projects planned we still have been going much more than not.  On Saturday the main focus was getting the chickens perch reconfigured.  We wanted to lower it to make it safer/easier for the birds to jump down from.  Our original plan was to literally just chop maybe 18 inches from the triangle shaped perch and be done with it.

Saturday morning Cindy suggested that we consider a redesign in coordination with the elevation decrease which at first I was not really into as it sounded like more work.  However with the way the existing perch was constructed, even lowering it’s existing design was going to be more trouble than you would think.  Cindy suggested we transform the perch from a triangle into a rectangle which would allow for more perching space.  Doing so would allow us to use some of the perch in it’s existing layout and to repurpose most of the wood we pull off in it’s new configuration.

We did a Home Depot run in the new Tacoma, adding another 10 bags to go with the 20 I picked up on Friday after work.  We also grabbed the additional lumber we would need to complete the perch which was not much.

We set up the 13 x 13 Coleman tent I bought at Costco a few weeks back to use as a sun shelter.  It worked well until some strong winds started to blow in advance of a storm.  We dropped the tent to prevent it from unintentionally becoming a flying object.  We finished up the work inside the chicken coop to protect us from the rain.  We were both happy with the end result.  It has ample perch space with a low enough height that even our fattest chicken, Cocoa should be able to jump down without getting injured.  Although the birds looked a bit confused about their new sleeping arrangements they eventually settled down and all had more space to sleep than they had previously.

Saturday afternoon I accompanied Cindy to the place her daughter is living with her boyfriend’s parents.  Cindy agreed to look after their two dogs, Tank and Bowser while Katie and the boyfriend’s family were away for the weekend.  I also brought my drone along to get some aerial video of the old abandoned track in the back of their property.  Tank and Bowser are normally crated when nobody is home which always makes me feel badly.  They say dogs don’t mind being crated but it sure doesn’t seem like fun to me.

They were both very happy to see us and ran around happily in the yard, enjoying their freedom.  I took my drone to the back of the property and set it up in the air.  Believe it or not I think this was the first time I have flown the Phantom since the Yellowstone drone prosecution fiasco. The track is badly grown over but you can tell originally a lot of time, money and effort went into it’s construction.  It is fully covered with asphalt and even has banked turns.  Some areas of the track you can barely see due to massive overgrowth.  The aerial footage came out half decent.  Click here if you want to take a look.

On Saturday night we stayed home and watched Max, the story about a military dog whose handler was killed.  Of course any dog related movie is going to be an emotional thing for me.  It was a touching movie that any dog lover will enjoy.  B+

On Sunday morning we were originally going to run but decided to postpone it for a couple reasons, the biggest being the big blister on the side of my foot from wearing wet Crocs a good portion of the day Saturday.  We instead did our second Home Depot run in as many days (after letting out the dogs again) so Cindy could get some supplies to repaint the perch and I could grab a few random items I needed.

When we got home I got around to doing my post 1000 mile oil change on the new Tacoma.  I wanted to minimize the chance of tiny metal shavings contaminating the oil from the engine’s first 1000 miles of use.  I was a little late as the odometer actually read 1305 miles when I did it.  While I was under the truck I heard a car stop out front accompanied by a voice.  It was a guy asking about my old king size mattress I had by the curb.  I was hoping somebody would actually take it instead of it being relegated to the back of a trash truck.  My mom got me the mattress years ago so I had some sentiment about it.

I told the guy the mattress was still in decent shape.  He first asked if I could set it aside until he could come back with his truck but then decided he was going to just strap it to the roof of his car.  I helped him hoist the mattress into position and he then tied it down.  It made me feel good knowing someone potentially will continue to get use out of the mattress that mom carefully picked out for me years ago.

I decided to video the oil change on the Tacoma just as I do with nearly all of my automotive work.  I figured it would be a good way for me to get some familiarity with my new truck.  I was literally just changing the oil and not the filter.  The oil filter location on the the new Tacomas is a bit of a pain in the ass as the only way you can reach it is by removing the skid plate from the truck.  It also is a canister type filter instead of the conventional all-in-ones I have dealt with in the past.  You unscrew the the housing and just replace the filter element inside.  I am not sure why Toyota thought this was a better choice as I am sure it will be quite a messy job to replace.

The oil swap went smoothly.  If you would like to see the documentary regarding it, click here.

After lunch I hopped on the tractor to get the yard mowed.  The grass growth rate has now started to accelerate due to the increase in precipitation.  I tried to hurry up and get done because we planned to go see a matinee of the new X-men movie at 3:30.  Even with us hustling we walked into the theater just as previews had started.  Luckily the time of day meant the theater was very empty.

Like Captain America, this movie was very long, nearly two and a half hours.  I always enjoy X-men movies although my comic book knowledge of their characters is not very strong.  I liked the movie. Although it was not as good as Civil War in my opinion, I would still give it an A- rating.

This morning we finally got out for our run.  I let my normal weekday alarm set to get us out of bed relatively early so we could start before the heat of the day hit hard.  We got to the track around 7AM and tacked on an extra lap which added up to just shy of 4 miles, a longish run for me nowadays.  We were both glad to get the run out of the way early.  Afterwards we went straight to Dunkin Donuts followed by a stop at Sam’s to grab some bulk and ancillary items.

I am hoping to be able to just chill for a good portion of the rest of the day as we have no Memorial Day social functions on the calendar.  For the last 5 or 6 years my Memorial Days used to always include timing a race in the morning and then attending the running club Memorial Day picnic in the late afternoon.  I used to have a lot of fun at the club picnic.  The recent venue change for the picnic last year along with the changes in my relationship with the club have made that option not an appealing one this year unfortunately.  Perhaps circumstances in the future will make it a better option once again.

Of course today really isn’t about picnics, pool parties, hot dogs or hamburgers.  It’s a day to reflect upon and appreciate those that gave up themselves in the name of our country.  It is a sacrifice not many can imagine but hopefully more can respect and learn from. Wouldn’t a goal of a more peaceful existence in the future where regular loss of life in the military is not so commonplace that it hardly generates a mention in the 24 hour news machines be a great thing?

The gel infused foam mattress we ordered showed up Wednesday night.  We got around to putting it on the bed last night.  Although my old mattress was quite old I was hesitant to switch it up.  Despite it’s age it was still delivering me a comfortable night of sleep.  The mattress we got is the same model as we have had in the guest room for a couple years, a 12 inch thick gel infused memory foam.

These mattresses come rolled up in a vacuum sealed bag.  Setting them up is kind of fun.  As soon as you cut the bag there is a loud sucking sound as air rushes back in to restore the mattress to it’s normal dimensions.  I thought it might make for interesting YouTube video but I don’t think my hopes were realized.

I didn’t really care if the video footage was less than spectacular, it gave me a chance to mess around with my new video editing software, Camtasia.  I stumbled across it after doing a Google search for Movie Maker alternatives.  It seemed very clear that you get what you pay for when it comes to video editing software.  Although Camtasia does cost some money it won’t break the bank like Adobe Premier will.

After downloading the demo and messing with it for a little bit I could quickly tell this was exactly what I was looking for.  It lets you do professional style edits and effects in an intuitive manner.  In the mattress video I just threw some random things in there for testing like music, an overlay and transitions just because.  In addition to being a great video editor it also has strong built in screen capture support meaning doing things that involve capturing action on the pc is super easy.  I look forward to seeing how I can improve my video production moving forward using the software.

I have one of those much anticipated three day weekends coming up.  I don’t have a big formal project on the books but several small ones instead.  There are big mulch sales this weekend so I am having Cindy buy 20 bags that I can spread in the orchard to freshen it up.

My new Tacoma recently crossed 1000 miles.  Even though I believe the first official oil change is not supposed to be until 10k miles thanks to the synthetic 0w-20 oil it uses, I want to drain and refill it now.  Old school practices are the first 1000 miles is the break in period for a motor which has the potential to create minute metal shavings which could negatively affect the engine down the road, hence my desire to drain/refill it.  With modern engines this may be absolutely unnecessary but I am going to do it anyway for my own peace of mind.

Finally Cindy and I want to reduce the height of the perch in the coop.  Although the chickens have no problem getting up to the top of the roughly 5 foot high perch they do have issues getting off it.  Most of the birds do an awkward kamikaze-like wing flapping dive off the top, awkwardly landing on the ground below.  With the size of some of the chickens like our resident fatty Cocoa we are concerned that the impact from coming down that high could eventually cause injury.  We hope to cut the height of the perch by a couple feet.

The small projects will hopefully not be overly time consuming as we would like some time to just chill.  I would love to have some time to dig into Overwatch in a meaningful manner.  We also are planning to get out to see the new X-men movie, it looks epic.

So I recorded vlogs on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  I have quickly seen why regular vlogging is something that a lot of people start but very few stick with for long, it’s a pain in the ass.  Not only do you need to try to to be somewhat interesting or entertaining on camera, you then need to do the back end work to edit and post the video.  I will never be a daily vlogger.  I’ll try to work more on quality instead of quantity.

Speaking of quality, I have been trying to find software to use for my editing that offers more flexibility than good old Windows Movie Maker which I have used to create the vast majority of my content.  I have AVS video editor as well but use it rarely as it seems to make things that are simple in Movie Maker, complicated.  I will be doing some more digging around.  Years and years ago in my volleyball video making heyday I used Adobe Premiere to make stuff which was very powerful but also much more complex.

So the sun blocking capability of the window tint in the Tacoma is impressive.  What I am not impressed with is the clean up job the installer did.  The early morning sun reveals a ton of streaks and haze in the tint which I am hoping we can clean up with some water and elbow grease.  There are also water marks all over the interior from all the water spraying  that he should have wiped up after he was done.  It’s annoying and if we can’t get it looking cleaner it means Cindy will have to make another trip in there for the installer to remedy it somehow.  We paid too much to accept a subpar end result.

I talk about the end results of getting the Tacoma windows tinted, coyotes, overly long crossing buttons, and a few other items in part 1. In the second part of the blog I talk about a personality trait of mine that is often misinterpreted. https://blog.duf.net

I talk about my busy weekend which included buying a new tv, combining two monitors with problems into one working unit and oh yea, I got engaged and filmed it with my GoPro. 🙂 I also talk about the new DJI Phantom, lower body workouts and the difficulties of talking solo. Filmed in my 2016 Tacoma. https://blog.duf.net

Yesterday Cindy picked up the Tacoma mid-afternoon to get the windows tinted.  My original plan was to just have the side windows done since that is the most noticeable both appearance and heat-wise.  The owner of the shop highly recommended we do the windshield as well since it is the largest area of glass on a vehicle and allows the most heat to enter.  We had the windshield done on the Prius so even though it doubles the price of the install, I told Cindy to have the windshield done too.

On the drive to work I could definitely tell the difference with the tint in place.  Not only does the truck look better but I felt much less radiant energy coming into the passenger cabin.  I also have a lot of clean up to do.  The tint installation process is a very wet one so there are water marks on various places and the tint itself seems like it needs a good wipe down with a microfiber cloth to get streak marks out.

So Overwatch was officially released yesterday.  I went ahead and paid for the game although I did not get a chance to play it last night.  For whatever reason the last month or two I seem to have lost that window of time to game in the evening, or any other time for that matter.  I have hardly played anything.  I do look forward to digging in more to Overwatch but I fully expect to be little more than target practice for the more skilled players.  Hopefully with a nice full three day weekend on the horizon I can get some time to chillax in the game.

I forgot to mention I got a Harmony 650 universal remote to use with my new tv set up.  The Xfinity X1 remote will control the volume on my Yamaha surround sound but it would not turn it on or off for some odd reason.  The 650 takes care of that problem.  When you hit the “Watch TV” button it turns on the tv, sets it to the correct input and fires up the surround sound system.  Hitting the off button shuts it all down cleanly.

Yesterday I finally decided to become a paying Dropbox customer.  I have been a Dropbox user for years and had almost 10 gig of free space thanks to me referring others to the service.  I just love the convenience and security of having anything I deem important to be instantly replicated from my pc to any other machine I have the client loaded onto as well as the cloud on Dropbox servers and my phone.  By handing over 99 bucks for a year subscription my storage space gets cranked up to a pretty monstrous 1 terabyte, meaning I can start keeping far more stuff on my account if need be.  The fact that I can associate Dropbox as a GMT business expense made the decision even easier to make.

I got a call from our next door neighbor during the day yesterday.  He told me he just chased a rather large coyote from his backyard.  He said it was moving towards our yard which of course is a big concern because of the chickens.  The four foot fence we have around the property would be little challenge for a coyote to jump over.  We are going to have to keep a steady eye on the fenceline to make sure they are not out there planning an attack.

A coyote is primarily a nocturnal hunter which is a good thing since the chickens are very secure in their coop once the sun goes down.  We also have the blinking red led predator deterrents that light up the coop at night.  If a coyote did get on the property during the day the chickens do have several places to hide under the two sheds and under the coop platform.  I’m not sure if a coyote would be able to squeeze in there or not.  Of course we are worried for the chickens safety but we don’t want to trade their freedom to roam for 24/7 safety.  Quality of life is important, even for a chicken.

Before the actual marriage proposal there was a lot of build up. You have to see it to believe it. 🙂 https://blog.duf.net

A couple weeks ago I bought a Hisense Chromebook off a Woot deal. At $89 it was stupid cheap and I had no high expectations for the laptop.  It’s primary intended use was for races, to allow people to sign up on site or check results post race.  I never messed with a Chromebook before but I heard they are used by other timers in these roles very effectively.

So I started playing with it.  It did not take long for me to be impressed.  The laptop is light and seems to have decent build quality.  The Chrome OS takes a little getting used to but the learning curve was short.  The battery life is pretty insane, 7-8 hours which seems legit from my testing so far. The thing that impressed me the most was it’s ability to stream video, despite it’s low cost.  I was watching full screen YouTube videos last night effortlessly.  I really like this little Chromebook and will probably look to grab more if they pop up on Woot again in the future.

Did you know you can track your YouTube subscriber numbers in real time?  Me either.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with as the cause of the Egyptian airline plane that went down over the weekend.  I saw a story this morning that said some things they are finding point to some sort of explosion bringing it down.  However if this was a planted bomb I would think the responsible terrorist group would have been publicly beating their chest, taking responsibility for the tragedy.  The fact that the plane departed from Paris makes the terrorist angle seem more probable based on recent history.

Even if the planes demise is proven to not be terrorist related I have no doubt many will use this as an opportunity to fan the flames of hate and fear that are already burning at a high level.  Those two emotions are the primary ingredients used to manipulate and control the masses.

Friday I was really hoping to not have the after hours work take a lot of after hours time since it was only a small office that was being worked on.  Unfortunately we once again ran into a problem that stretched things out longer than it should have,  I wound up not getting out of there until after 7.

On Saturday morning I was outside shortly after 8am with the weed whacker in hand.  The yard had not been whacked in at least 3 weeks and was looking shaggy.  With the return of more regular rain I am going to have to get out there more often.  The heat and humidity knob has been turned back into the uncomfortable area where it will likely stay until October, yay. After whacking I jumped in the pool for a splashy splash session for Sadie which she greatly appreciated.

We then headed out for errands including a stop at Rural King and Sam’s.  At Rural King we say the running club equipment manager Bill.  It was the first time I saw him since I timed my last race.  Bill might be the hardest working human being I know.  Even though I don’t miss most aspects of timing events for the running club, being able to work with guys like Bill is one of the things I do miss.

We hit Sam’s on the way back.  With the sale of the Tacoma I was now seriously looking to pull the trigger on a replacement 4K tv.  During the week I was doing research and had established if I wanted to continue my upward growth of screen real estate I was going to have to pay in the neighborhood of $3400-$3500 which would be the most I ever paid for a set although when you adjust for inflation it might be in the same ball park as my 61 inch Sony projection set we bought when the house was new.

That was a lot of money for a tv but I had almost mentally committed myself to that just being the way it was, like I had no choice in the matter.  I had a 73 inch screen now so I HAD to go bigger.  Well Sam’s didn’t have a lot of 75 inch models but we did see a 70 inch LG 4K set that we looked at.  The picture looked sweet, even if it was 3 inches shorter diagonally.  We have had a LG set in the bedroom for over a couple years and have been very happy with it.  However the thing that really got my wheels turning was the price differential.  The LG was an $1800 set, almost half the price of a 75 inch Samsung or Sony (Samsung doesnt appear to make 4K 70 inch sets).  To pay $1700 for an extra 5 inches of screen area jolted me out of my MUST HAVE BIGGER trance.  I did not act at that point but it planted a seed.

We also went to the jewelry counter.  Cindy and I had been talking loosely about marriage for a long time and as a result Cindy has been looking at rings here and there.  One of the places she has been looking is at Sam’s who actually has a pretty substantial jewelry section, much bigger than Costco.  Randomly Cindy had sent me pictures of various rings she saw there she liked over the last couple months. We had even looked at rings online at places like Amazon but the idea of buying a ring sight unseen seemed risky.

Now my initial reaction when she told me she was looking at rings at Sam’s was negative.  I assumed they were not good rings as though they were a Wal-mart item even though Sam’s sells a lot more high end, high quality stuff.  Well when Cindy showed me the rings in person the stigma faded.  Not only were they good looking rings, they were certified diamonds and I could add an extended seven year warranty for a very reasonable price.  The buying power of a warehouse chain results in better pricing of all things, including jewelry.

Cindy showed me several she had liked.  Of course she wanted a beautiful ring but it was most important to her it was comfortable.  After putting on 4-5 rings she liked we finally agreed on one.  We took an unconventional but practical approach and just bought the ring on the spot.  Cindy did say that she wouldn’t wear the ring until I asked her in a more conventional manner.  So the ring remained in it’s box and bag on the drive home despite Cindy’s excitement to wear it.  I told her repeatedly she can just wear it but she was adamant that I needed to propose officially which I guess I could understand.  After two previous marriages my sense of formality about the process was not a priority for me.

When we got home I did some more quick research and thinking about my TV options.  I quick search on Amazon showed the LG set I saw at Sam’s had a 4+ stars rating which I put a lot of weight into.  Costco has the same set which would mean I would get a free 2nd year of warranty coverage but I would have to pay for it with my Costco American Express card instead of my Amazon Rewards Visa that I wanted to pay with for points.  Although I wouldn’t get a free year of warranty coverage Sam’s has very inexpensive extended warranties, I could tack on five years of coverage for a crazy cheap 99 bucks.  As comparison a place like Best Buy or HH Gregg will charge you 400 bucks or more for equivalent coverage.

So I made a decision I was going to just go with the LG set.  The savings versus size loss equation was just too heavy on the savings side.  I told Cindy I wanted to go back to Sam’s and get it.  We piled back in the Tacoma and headed out.  I brought the GoPro with and mounted it in the Tacoma, I told Cindy I wanted to vlog about the tv purchase.  Unbeknownst to her I also had the ring in the center console.

My plan was to officially propose to her on the way. Now most people would think this was a dumb idea but we aren’t most people.  Cindy actually had joked about the idea on the drive home earlier.   Her joke was about to become our reality.  So we started talking about the new tv purchase along with other random topics, none of which had to do with the ring.  I then finally made an awkward transition into the proposal as I was driving 55mph+ on Immokalee Road.

Despite us talking about it earlier Cindy seemed surprised by my actions.  The proposal was definitely the farthest thing from textbook as you could imagine since I made sure my eyes stayed on the road most of the time.  However I think somehow the sentiment and genuine feelings still were evident despite the unconventional delivery method.   Despite the lack of secrecy regarding the ring Cindy was still very excited and happy to be able to wear it officially.

It’s funny how the whole thing sort of organically happened.  I did not go into the weekend with any specific thoughts or plans about buying rings or getting engaged.  The circumstances just seemed to align themselves.  We have more or less lived as a married couple for more than a couple years so making it official just wasn’t as stressful as you would normally think.

So now the tv purchase took on a more celebratory aura.  We wasted no time grabbing a flat bed and loading the big LG set onto it as well as one of the extended warranty cardboard placeholders.  Checking out with my wallet being an extra $1500 heavier felt satisfying.  I was glad I reexamined my tv priorities.  The enormous box actually fit cleanly on it’s side in between the wheel wells of the Tacoma.  I think the bed of the truck is slightly larger than what I was accustomed to in the 99 as well.

Of course when I got home I dug straight into tv set up.  Cindy helped me set the 73 inch Mitsubishi in the dining room and place the slightly smaller LG set in it’s place.  Despite it’s reduced dimensions it fit the entertainment nook well, I only had maybe an inch or so extra space on either side.  Setting up the set went fine until it came time to connect it to my Yamaha surround sound.  I first tried to do so with a spare optical audio cable I had sitting around for awhile.  When I couldn’t get that to work I tried using the ARC HDMI port and had limited success.

The most straightforward way was to use the optical audio cable.  The cable I had did not seem to fit well on either the tv or Yamaha side.  I wondered if the cable was just bad so I headed back out one final time to grab a new optical cable at Wal-mart.  When I got it home I realized the only thing wrong with the old cable was my stupidity.  The optical cables have a small protective boot on either end.  I was trying to insert the cable with that boot still in place.  Once I pulled the boots off the cable snapped in place perfectly and sound started flowing from the speakers, sigh….

We watched a movie on the new set Saturday night and the picture looked great.  The movie was called Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves sporting quite the dad bod.  It was one of the more bizarre movies I have seen recently and had me laughing out loud during some scenes that I think were supposed to be dramatic.  Keanu meets up with two chicks that take crazy to an entirely new level.  If you like your movies to have you saying “What the fck?” a lot, be sure to rent it.  Overall I can only give it a B rating but really, on pure entertainment it could be rated higher.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I wanted to beat the now increasingly oppressive heat by getting out for our run earlier.  We left the house around 7:15.  We put in another 5k+ at the nearby track.  The pace according to Cindy’s gps was 15 seconds a mile slower than last week but it didn’t feel that way, perhaps from the heat.

When we got back I made arrangements to take Sadie back to Ali’s later in the morning with the 73 inch Mitsubishi in tow.  I had asked Ali awhile back that if/when I got around to getting a new TV if she wanted the 73 incher.  She said sure since her 48 inch or so LCD tv is really not big enough for the room she has.  They sit a good 15 feet away from the tv location.

So the Tacoma got it’s first real world use as we loaded the large tv into the bed and I secured it with my ratchet straps.  We covered it with the mylar looking bag the new tv came in.  In addition I had the empty chlorine jugs in the bed which needed to be refilled.  The new rubber bed mat really is awesome, eliminating the ice rink sliding that goes on if stuff is just on the composite plastic bed.

Ali’s boyfriend helped me carefully carry the tv into her place.  Set up had a couple hiccups but nothing serious.  The 73 inch of screen fit that space so much better and made viewing from across the room much, much easier.  Ali and her boyfriend thanked us for the tv.  I was happy that it would be repurposed and continue to entertain them for the foreseeable future.  It has been a great set for me.

Before heading home we made stops at Costco and Dick’s Sporting Goods.  At Costco we scored two sets of seat covers that wrapped the seat instead of just laying on top of them.  I had seen them when I shopped earlier in the week.  In normal Costco fashion, the check out experience was backlogged and miserable.

At Dick’s we picked up an olympic style curl bar that Cindy intends to use for a lot more than curling.  It’s shorter length makes it much more practical in her small “shed gym” she has laid out.

On Sunday afternoon I undertook my monitor repair project.  My hope was to somehow take parts out of a damaged monitor I bought on Ebay for 50 bucks to get my just out of warranty monitor working again.  I had never dug into a monitor before so I figured if nothing else it would be a learning experience. It was.

I was surprised just how little was inside the monitor as far as circuit boards go.  I first tried swapping out the small circuit board that power and video connections connect to.  When that made no difference the surgery became much more expansive.

If you want the full play by play feel free to watch the video I shot during the process.  In the end I basically pulled the cracked screen out of the Ebay monitor and inserted the uncracked screen from my monitor in it’s place.  The way I got to that point was a twisting path of confusion but all I know is it works.  My Frankensteined monitor works well. The only flaw is the top right corner has a bright spot that I hardly even notice since I assigned it as my secondary screen.

Sunday night we had our last regular season Tarpons game to attend.  Cindy thought it would be appropriate to make the official social media declaration about the proposal then since it all started there when Cindy went with me to a Tarpons game more than 3 years ago.  We took a selfie in our empty section of the arena to celebrate.

The game was yet another boring blow out as every home game has been this year with the Tarpons winning 70-6.  There will be at least one home play off game although the disorganized league doesn’t really know who they will play at this point.  All I hope is we get to see at least one competitive game this year.

In the final episode for the day I talk about the gym, dumb bank policies, warehouse retailer complaints and whatever left comes into my head. https://blog.duf.net